Читать книгу The Characteristics of American Humour - Various Authors - Страница 17

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If every man were to relate the little romances of love in which he becomes involved, at some time or other of his life, novelists or farce-writers would be supplied with plots and incidents enough to supply publishers and managers with a continual run of novelties for all times.

In the story of the “Two Fat Sals” is recorded the experience of one man only, but it affords a very useful lesson on the evils of a mind divided in the matter of love, and another illustrious example of the truth of the aphorism, that “the course of true love never did run smooth.”

“There was two Sals livin’ in our town—Sal Stebbins and Sal Babit; real corn-fed gals, I swow. Sal Stebbins would lift a barrel of cyder out of the eend of a cart as quick as any other feller, and drink it tew. Sal Babit, she was so fat, she’d roll one way jest as easy as t’other, and if anything, a little easier. Well, there was a corn-husking, and I went along with Sal Stebbins: there was all the gals and boys settin’ reound, and I got sot down so near Sal Babit, that I’ll be darned if I didn’t kiss her afore I know’d what I was abeout. Sal Stebbins, she blushed: the blood rushed right up into her hair: she was the best red critter I ever did see. I thought it was all up with me, and sure enough it was, for when I asked her if she would go hum with me, she said:

“ ‘No; you needn’t trouble yourself nothin’ ’tall ’bout it.’

“ ‘Well, if you’re mind to get spunky, I guess I can git a gal that will let me see her hum. Sal Babit, shall I go hum with you?’

“ ‘Well,’ says she, ‘I don’t mind if you dew.’

“Arter that, Sal Stebbins married a feller in our town, by the name of Post—blind in one eye, and deaf in one ear—jest to spite me, nothin’ else: so I thought if she was a mind to take a feller that couldn’t see or hear any tew well, I’d better let her slide: so I went away from hum, and was gone about three—four—five years?—yes, jest about five years, ’cause I know when I got back she had four little Posts. I went to see how she got along. She asked me to come in and set down; so I tuck a cheer and squatted; then she tuck another cheer and squatted; and we both squatted there together. Her young ones was all runnin’ reound on the floor: she pinted to them, and said, in a sort of bragging way,

“ ‘You see them, don’t you?’

“ ‘Yes,’ says I, squintin’ up one eye, ‘I see, they’re all jest like their daddy, blind in one eye.’

“She was bilin’ dumplings at the time, and as soon as she see me shut up one eye, she out with a hot dumplin’, and let me have it in t’other, which made me shut it up a darn’d sight quicker than I ever did afore, and I haint been in love since that time.”

[11]	By G. H. Hill.